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CUDA based cards now have another home in CS5

Posted by on May 19, 2011 in Tech Tips | 1 comment

In my search for a list of CUDA based NVidia video cards that will support Adobe Premiere CS5, I came across this web site www.Studio1productions.com.  It has an article that has the steps to unlock Premiere CS5 so that more than the few currently Adobe supported CUDA cards can be used to crunch video data from the Premiere timeline.  Good news, as the suggested high end Quadro line of NVidia cards is not exactly cheap. So what you say?  If you do post work in HD video and want to save a ton of time in filter based rendering and or...

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NTSC and PAL in Hi-Def!! I don’t think so

Posted by on Feb 24, 2011 in Resource Articles | 6 comments

NTSC or PAL Operation in High Definition Video Lets start off by saying there is no such thing as NTSC or PAL in the High Definition video world.  Just scan rate differences. NTSC and PAL standards are color methods and scan/refresh rates that have their origin in the analog domain.  Their corollary does however have a bridge to Digital Television (DTV) in the form of the well established DVD, DV video and SDTV video standards.  In this case they do exhibit the distinctive scan rates and frame resolutions as defined in their respective...

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Frame Blending Problem in Premiere CS4

Posted by on Jan 23, 2011 in Tech Tips | 1 comment

Frame blending can be forced off in render. When I do my Premiere setups prior to doing an edit on my HD video files, one of the first things I do is to turn off the ‘blend frames‘ option in the Clip menu. It is on by default.  A simple test on the clip in the timeline verifies the setting.  But a big oops appears in the output render.  Frame blend is still on. The ghostly look of frames that merge the before and after frames in the current frame.  It’s unnatural look is very to annoying to look at particularly when there...

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Creating Proxy Files in Adobe Premiere CS4 and CS5

Posted by on Dec 19, 2010 in Tech Tips | 27 comments

Offline Proxy editing for High Definition Video When working with uncompressed YUV video files like we do at HomeDVD, we use a technique called proxy editing.  Why do this?  Uncompressed HD video files by nature are large and as such present a data handling problem on most computer platforms particularly when editing them.  Did I mention slow as molasses in January. It simply means that rather editing the large uncompressed files on the NLE timeline, use a lower resolution clone.  Then an average powered computer platform can work in...

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Competitive comparsion of an SD film transfer

Posted by on Jun 1, 2010 in Resource Articles | 1 comment

The wide range of film telecine methods, equipment, internal workflows and post production practices have a direct impact on the visual outcome of a telecined home movie film. Lets take a look at the differences. “If I were to transfer my once in a lifetime films to DVD, choosing a film transfer vendor could be a real gamble. Unless I assume they all produce the same results and all I have to do is shop on price… ” The consumer. Introduction Rumble House Media Group Inc. May 2008 – June 2010 There seems to be hundreds...

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LCD Screen Refresh Rates – More snake oil!!

Posted by on Apr 4, 2010 in Commentary and Opinion | 1 comment

LCD frame refresh rates get bumped up. Why?? What’s with all the hype regarding those higher refresh rates for LCD screens that are being pumped up beyond 60 Hz these days as the answer to eliminating those pesky video smears or blurs that occur in scenes that have high intra frame to frame motion?  Rates like 120Hz, 240Hz and now being extolled 480Hz. Since when is higher better in this case? Let’s first take a look at why this phenomenom has come about. It looks like the LCD HD video panel has a problem with refreshing its...

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The Elusive Search for Affordable HD Crunch Power

Posted by on Jan 2, 2010 in Tech Tips | 0 comments

There are solutions but they are not perfect. Ok to start off, Adobe’s latest offering of Premiere in both CS3 and CS4 to say in very restrained terms is very frustrating ##%&&*#@%&.  A simple render from the timeline just grinds and labours along like heavily congealed axle grease.  Unlike earlier versions in Premiere Pro 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0, — grease lighting in comparison.  Unfortunately, these earlier versions do not support the full 8bit and 10bit YUV 4:2:2 operation we need for our HD film transfer services. We have...

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Here’s some handy step by step suggestions on how to process raw untimed film footage and export it to compliant YUV 4:2:2 HD video from the NLE’s timeline for great results

Posted by on Dec 28, 2009 in Tech Tips | 7 comments

How to create HD Film Masters with Adobe Premiere Assumptions: You know how to motor around in Premiere. Know the terms and basic processes.  If not, go to the Adobe site.  It has a lot of great tutorials. The last couple of versions of Adobe Premiere which support High Definition video, also has the built-in functionality that is needed to create what I call HD Film Master files.  These files are the basis for furthering any HD post production activities, any HD transcoding processes or direct to Blu ray disk publishing. Though the following...

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Film frames converted to uncompressed RGB bitmaps in huge volumes requires an uncomplicated and reliable way to make the raw material for final YUV based film masters.

Posted by on Dec 28, 2009 in Tech Tips | 4 comments

This is how we do it using Adobe After Effects. Though uniquely part of the HomeDVD HD film to video telecine process, other imaging applications that use RGB format sequences for conversion to a video stream can adapt to what is about to be presented here. There are many stand alone utilities that will do an image sequence to HD video conversion, but they cannot handle the shear volume of frames or the HD image dimensions like Adobe After Effects can.  Adobe Premiere Pro can process image sequence to video conversions as well, but has limits...

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Contrast Ratios Run Amok

Posted by on Sep 21, 2009 in Commentary and Opinion | 0 comments

Ridiculous Display Contrast Ratios Ok, I can buy into 3000:1 or even slipping by 10000:1 (yikes) contrast ratios for the latest LCD or plasma displays, but hey guys, this is getting to be too much when I saw an ad from a local electronics shop the other day touting 2,000,000:1, yes that’s 2 million to one ratio.  What are we looking at the sun? Using accepted scientific methods to measure realistic contrast ratios for displays, a figure of 2,000,000:1 would burn your retinas out.  Numbers between to 20:1 and 100:1 are more the norm believe it...

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